HEALTH & WELLNESS

You can eat a healthy diet, exercise religiously, and follow every single one of your doctor's recommendations -- but no matter how healthy or well-conditioned your body may be, at some point, your lower back is almost destined to cause you problems.For most people, low back pain is just a minor annoyance that emerges once in awhile, sticks around for a couple of days, then goes away. For other people, there's no break from the pain.When pain becomes chronic, it goes far beyond a physical sensation. It can impact your emotions, too. "The back pain can become a black hole for all of life's bumps in the road. Everything is blamed on the back pain. If the back pain were better, everything would be better," says Jerome Schofferman, MD, head of the Rehabilitation, Interventional, and Medical Spine Care (RIMS) Section of the North American Spine Society, and director of Research and Education for SpineCare Medical Group in San Francisco and Daly City, Calif.How well you cope with your low back pain, and whether you get the right treatment for the physical and emotional impacts of it, will determine whether you control your pain -- or it controls you.The Pain-Emotion ConnectionLow back pain can be more than just physical. It can have a profound effect on your mood, and just about every other part of your life. "Chronic pain is something that interferes with every aspect of daily living. You can't concentrate -- you can't remember things as well. It affects your appetite, it affects your sleep," says Robert N. Jamison, PhD, associate professor in the Departments of Anesthesia and Psychiatry at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston.People who are in constant pain may worry that they won't be able to work or go about their daily activities. With all of that stress, "It makes sense that people get depressed, anxious, and irritable," Jamison says. Pain is more than just unpleasant sensations traveling through your nervous system. It also involves your perception, feelings, and thoughts. The worse you think your pain will be -- the worse it feels.

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Coconut oil is one of the few foods that can be classified as a “superfood.” Its unique combination of fatty acids can have profound positive effects on health.This includes fat loss, better brain function and various other amazing benefits.Here are the top 10 health benefits of coconut oil that have been experimentally confirmed in human studies.1. Coconut Oil Contains a Unique Combination of Fatty Acids With Powerful Medicinal Properties.

Coconut oil has been demonized in the past because it contains saturated fat. In fact, coconut oil is one of the richest sources of saturated fat known to man, with almost 90% of the fatty acids in it being saturated.However, new data is showing that saturated fats are harmless. Many massive studies that include hundreds of thousands of people prove that the whole “artery-clogging” idea was a myth.Additionally, coconut oil doesn’t contain your average run-of-the-mill saturated fats like you would find in cheese or steak.No, they contain so-called Medium Chain Triglycerides (MCTs) – which are fatty acids of a medium length.Most of the fatty acids in the diet are long-chain fatty acids, but the medium-chain fatty acids in coconut oil are metabolized differently.They go straight to the liver from the digestive tract, where they are used as a quick source energy or turned into so-called ketone bodies, which can have therapeutic effects on brain disorders like epilepsy and Alzheimer’s.

2. Populations That Eat a LOT of Coconut Are Among The Healthiest People on The Planet.

Coconut is kind of an “exotic” food in the Western world, primarily consumed by health conscious people. However, in some parts of the world, coconut is a dietary staple that people have thrived on for many generations.The best example of such a population is the Tokelauans, which live in the South Pacific. They eat over 60% of their calories from coconuts and are the biggest consumers of saturated fat in the world. These people are in excellent health, with no evidence of heart disease.Another example of a population that eats a lot of coconut and remains in excellent health is the Kitavans.

3. Coconut Oil Can Increase Your Energy Expenditure, Helping You Burn More FatObesity is currently one of the biggest health problems in the world. While some people think obesity is only a matter of calories, others (myself included) believe that the sources of those calories are critical too.It is a fact that different foods affect our bodies and hormones in different ways. In this regard, a calorie is NOT a calorie.The medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs) in coconut oil can increase energy expenditure compared to the same amount of calories from longer chain fats. One study found that 15-30 grams of MCTs per day increased 24 hour energy expenditure by 5%, totalling about 120 calories per day.